Site clearing a problem for officials
More than wild turkey feathers were ruffled during a recent brush-clearing incident at Lake Coeur d’Alene.
Developer Marshall Chesrown plans to create 33 luxury lake estates on 250 acres adjoining the bay. The Ridge at Sun Up Bay would be a gated community of homes priced at $2 million and up, similar to Chesrown’s nearby Club at Black Rock.
Late last year, a contractor cleared the brush from the forested property. Some government officials think the contractor scraped the site too clean.
“A large portion of the property has been cleared of all natural vegetation except trees,” Chip Corsi, regional supervisor for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, wrote in a letter to the Kootenai County Planning Department.
Corsi said he thought the developer planned to leave native plants for wildlife.
“Song birds, wild turkey … pheasant, quail, small mammals, deer and elk will be displaced,” he wrote. “Removal of the natural vegetation increases the likelihood that the remaining deer and elk will forge on (ornamental) landscaping … creating conflicts with the landowners.”
County Planning Director Rand Wichman said he’ll meet with Inland Northwest Consultants, the Post Falls company that oversaw the ground clearing, later this week to discuss the work.
The incident also prompted the state Department of Environmental Quality to file a complaint with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA regulates runoff from construction sites.
Chesrown said the brush-clearing was allowed under a logging permit.
“We did some cleanup under a logging permit,” he said. “We haven’t done anything at the site that isn’t legal.”
Black Rock and another of his developments, the Ridge at Cougar Bay, underwent a similar thatching, Chesrown said.
“Black Rock is a wildlife refuge. We’re overrun with wildlife … It doesn’t keep the wildlife from reappearing,” he said. “We’re trying to make a piece of property look like a park. We try to do everything first-class, and everything by the letter of the law.”
Chesrown bought the 250 acres at Sun Up Bay three years ago. A 33-lot subdivision is low-density use for the site, he said. Past developers proposed building hundreds of homes and condos on Sun Up Bay.
“We’re going high-end,” Chesrown said. “Spread-out properties with big homes make a much prettier presentation from the waterfront.”
Like Black Rock, the development will be marketed nationally, he said.
Last month, a Kootenai County hearings examiner denied Chesrown’s initial request for preliminary subdivision approval. The examiner said he needed to provide additional information, including hydrologic modeling to determine the impacts of 33 septic systems on the groundwater.
Several neighbors raised concerns about potential impacts on their wells during the hearing process. Some said they fear their property taxes will spike if a multi-million dollar development is built next door.
Frank Knott of Spokane, however, sent a letter of support, applauding the small number of lots. In the past 20 years, a number of developers have looked at the property, he noted. Most planned high-density developments.
“This is amazing in today’s world,” he wrote. “I do not have the ability to estimate how many cars per day would use this site if it were developed to the full building potential.”
Last year, the EPA fined Aapex Construction of Post Falls $7,000 for work done at the Ridge at Cougar Bay without a storm water permit.
In an unrelated incident, Harrison Heights LLC and a contractor recently agreed to pay $27,000 for violating storm water provisions of the federal Clean Water Act. The violations occurred during the construction of a subdivision on the southeast side of Lake Coeur d’Alene.
Mark MacIntyre, EPA spokesman in Seattle, said the agency became more aware of local water quality violations as it investigated a U.S. Highway 95 construction project that sent massive amounts of mud into Mica Creek. The EPA cited the Idaho Department of Transportation and its contractor for 170 violations of the Clean Water Act.